The Opportunity rover has been on Mars for over a decade now, but its mission was only supposed to last three weeks. After far surpassing all expectations, it’s no surprise the rover isn’t in the best of shape. A series of software errors have led NASA’s jet propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to the inevitable conclusion that it will need to reformat the rover’s flash memory. No big deal–Opportunity is only 125 million miles away.

Opportunity uses flash storage similar to what you have in your phone or computer’s solid state drive to store mission data and operating software. JPL has been forced to restart the rover repeatedly after it failed to properly execute commands. Last month JPL had to reset the rover more than a dozen times. The only solution, according to scientists, is to start from scratch and hope the little rover can keep on chugging a little longer.

NASA will begin the reformatting process next month by switching the rover into a mode that does not use flash memory. The mission software will be backed up on a separate non-volatile storage device so the flash can be completely wiped. As part of the process, NASA will attempt to map out damaged and worn flash cells so they will not be used going forward. It is hoped this will put a stop to all those pesky errors. The rover will then switch back to operating on the flash memory, but NASA will also tweak the software to send data back at a slower rate to reduce strain on the flash cells. The process is expected to take only a day or two.

NASA previously performed this same operation on Opportunity’s sister rover Spirit, which finally stopped working in 2010. Both rovers have contributed significantly to our understanding of a much younger, wetter Mars. Opportunity might go on to make more discoveries if all goes as planned next month.